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Dems Say They’ll Help Trump Fix Obamacare If He Stops Trying To Kill It

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump, health care failure is not your only option. You can still work with Democrats to repair problems with the Affordable Care Act, top Democratic senators said Thursday.

Confronted with simmering rebellions from both conservative and moderate Republicans in the House, the bid by Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to repeal and replace Obamacare looks increasingly doomed.

That has led some Republicans, including Trump himself, to suggest in recent days that perhaps the law could collapse on its own, and then Democrats would have to come up with a solution.

Heres what I would tell the president: If you cant get a better deal and if you cant protect that 62-year-old worker in Greenville from having dramatic premium increases because Democrats wont work with you and you cant get the Republican Party on board, stop, take a time-out, let it collapse, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on MSNBCs Morning Joe. Then turn to the Democrats and say, This was the system you created. It has collapsed, now help me replace it. Thats what I would do.

There is one large problem with the Obamacare death spiral theory, and that is that the recent Congressional Budget Office analysis of the GOPs replacement plan found the Affordable Care Act is not in dangerof collapse.

Still, Democrats contacted by The Huffington Post said they nevertheless would be willing to work across the aisle to fix the problems that do exist in the individual insurance markets created under President Barack Obamas signature law.

Trump just needs to end his mission to destroy the entire legislation.

Democrats have tried for years to get Republicans to work with us on ways to get more people covered, make health care more affordable, and improve quality of care but before that can happen, Republicans have to step back from the precipice and drop their reckless, politically motivated repeal efforts, said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

And to be clear, the time for Republicans to back away from Trumpcare and its devastating consequences is now, not after tens of millions of people have lost their coverage, Murray added, referring to the CBO estimates that Trumps repeal push would cost 24 million people their insurance by 2026.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) come out in a similar place as Murray.

We have long said we would work with Republicans to improve the ACA if Republicans will drop repeal. But they have to drop repeal first, said Schumer spokesman Matt House.

Durbin has said repeatedly that if the Republicans take repeal off the table, he will pull up a chair, said his spokesman, Ben Marter.

That might not necessarily be what Republicans have in mind, however, should their Obamacare repeal efforts fail. They might prefer to sabotage the law as much as they can, then try to blame Democrats for its failure, as Democrats say the GOP is already doing.

Murray said she thinks Republicans have already tried to hamstring Obamacare to such an extent that the law might already be more properly labeled Trumpcare, since it is no longer the bill passed in 2010, and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price is contemplating more ways to hobble the original legislation.

Even if Republicans cant jam Trumpcare through Congress, make no mistake that theyll create it by sabotaging the current health care system, step by step, Murray said. Weve already seen it start to happen and Democrats will be ready to hold Republicans accountable and make clear exactly whats going on and whos responsible.

The point is a key one. If the CBO is correct, and Obamacare is actually stable, the GOPs only option to kill the law would be to try to undermine it.

And Democrats say all the talk of collapse weakens the GOPs ability to carry out that sabotage in a manner that wont be painfully obvious to the public and easily highlighted by Democrats.

Openly discussing sabotage of the insurance market doesnt seem like a good PR strategy for a party in full control of government that cant even accomplish their signature policy goal, said one senior Democratic aide.

If the repeal-and-replace gambit fails, and the public is prepared to blame Republicans for ruining the insurance markets, those offers by Democrats could start to look pretty good to a president whose entire agenda could be infected by a fatally flawed health care plan.

If the GOPs repeal bill fails, they can and should work with Democrats to improve the ACA, Durbin spokesman Marter said.

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